Help! What is my kid looking at and how do I know?
Hello all, so I have 2 teenage boys. We currently have the “family link” parental control app. I believe they have figured out ways around the parent controls (its not heavy monitoring on conversations, and really only helps lock the phone and apps for time and use) I’m curious if someone has knowledge or experience with VPNS. I have heard of them, and have recently heard one of my sons talk about it. I’m wondering if someone can shed some light on what they are and how you fins out if your child is using one?
A VPN won’t get around family link blocks so you don’t need to worry about it for that. However, it can be used to bypass firewalls at the library, school, etc.
The most likely situation is school to unblock social media and games.
My husband is a software engineer and he says all parental controls can be bypassed if the kid is bright enough.
This link will explain vpns. I only ever used them in gaming I’m not sure what other uses they have. We briefly discussed setting one up with a friend to share media as well. But I’m not a software engineer.
Edit I talked to my husband he said that if vpns are allowed by the parental controls than yes they bypass them. Check your settings and block vpns if you can
It makes websites think you’re from somewhere else. Can be used to, for example make Netflix think you’re from Germany and show you German exclusive shows, or it could help bypass a region-locked website (food.com comes to mind)
At some point we have to cut the cord as parents. You cannot and should not be monitoring every single thing your kids do (age dependent). You should be having frank conversations with them about the harmful realities of social media and the internet and give them the mental tools they need to survive. These conversations and tools should go beyond the internet and encompass all of life issues.
All we can do as parents is provide them those tools and be there to support them when they inevitably make a mistake (and hopefully learn from it) and need us the most.
Lets not forget ourselves as teenagers and all the sh!t we did and yet here we are today. Kids need to fail in order to grow. Don’t steal that from them.
A VPN definitively wouldn’t bypass a time lock restriction. What a VPN does is set up a secure tunnel between you and a server that will help you be anonymous on the internet and hide your traffic to your internet service provider.
It would also block things like blocked URLs. However as someone else mentioned, all parental controls can be bypassed (just look at the horror over on r/FamilyLink).
My suggestion is that you try to talk with your kid and explain to them why the screen controls are necessary. Having them be on board with a proper use of devices is far more functional than any parental control app.
man i double booted linux on my computer to get free from screen time locks, and tons of other kids have too so… also if your child is above the age of 13 i say let them do whatever exept illegal stuff (if you know what i mean) but im also not telling you to parent so whatever
. I think reach out for parenting advice is quite the opposite!